A Ukrainian guitarist has completed the exhaustive process of restoring a Gibson Les Paul that was badly burned after a Russian drone strike hit the nation’s capital city last year. She calls it “the most challenging project I’ve ever worked on — both technically and emotionally.”
Luthier Tanya Shpachuk documented her efforts to return the blackened guitar — named Vlad after its owner — to a playable state. As a professional guitar tech working out of a Kyiv-based shop, Shpachuk was well-equipped to take on the challenge, but was also struck by the emotional weight that her restoration mission held.
“Being able to take part in this restoration feels like more than just fixing a guitar,” she writes in the description from her video series that documents the restoration. “It’s about bringing back a piece of our history, a piece of beauty and a piece of hope.
”I’ll do everything I can to make this guitar sing again, to honor its story, and to remind everyone that even after destruction, creativity and resilience will always find a way.”
Shpachuk calls the damage “heartbreaking.” The guitar’s body was charred and distorted, parts of its headstock were cracked, and several inlays had fallen out. Three of its four control knobs were destroyed, and the pickup mounting rings were warped by the heat of flames. It looked largely irreparable.
Shpachuk thought otherwise. She scraped away the fire-damaged finish, replaced a damaged pearl inlay on the fretboard and spent hours tirelessly working on the guitar, giving it a complete refinish and new hardware.
The newly restored guitar now sports a gorgeous Silver Burst finish and features a new mother-of-pearl inlay for its headstock. The original pickups still bear the scars of the drone strike, however, a reminder of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
That invasion, launched in 2022, saw the music community rally to the country's aid. Gibson recruited Slash, Paul McCartney and other artists for a fundraiser, while Pink Floyd released a song inspired by a historic Ukrainian anthem.
Shpachuk says Les Paul she restored stands as a testament to the Ukrainian spirit in what has been an extremely challenging time for the nation. She explains, however, that her decision to refinish the guitar went agains the wishes of some followers on YouTube and her Patreon page.
“I saw many comments suggesting leaving the damage visible as a reminder, because it looks 'badass,’” she says in the video description in part eight, the final video of the series. “But my focus from the very beginning was restoration.
“The message here is simple: we all want rebuilding — and we are capable of doing it.”
The video series ends, quite fittingly, with its owner playing the freshly revitalized guitar, via some lovely finger-picking. Parts one and eight are embedded here, but watch the entire series to get a true scale of the project and its poignancy.
